- Put the lard to melt in a glass bowl (I used to stick it on top of the rayburn when I had one)
- Add the caustic soda to the cold water (GENTLY! And never the other way round)
- Once the water is clear again, add it slowly to the melted lard, mixing with a hand-blender with a towel over the top to stop it splashing
- When it's going gloopy and you can see the path of the blender in it ('tracing'), pour it in to your mold
- Keep it as warm as you can for a few hours to help the caustic soda/fat reaction continue
- Leave for six weeks somewhere where air can circulate round it - eg in a tea towel in the airing cupboard
- Slice and use
- Or, grate, add a bit of water and some petals/essential oils and wodge in to the mold again to set for a few days before slicing

Lye isn't so bad as it is not as concentrated as commercial sodium hydroxide. But to make hard soap you then need salt. Of course if you make soft soap you can use it for washing up liquid.

Finding soap in the supermarket these days is becoming increasingly difficult. There are all sorts of shower gel, hand cleaning gels etc. but soap is not so easy, and usually low down where you don't notice it.

It would appear that the horse chestnut tree leave are under threat from some grub, so its soap may become obsolete, dpack. And so conkers may become an obsolete 'game', read it somewhere-Daily Mail I think!

It would appear that the horse chestnut tree leave are under threat from some grub, so its soap may become obsolete, dpack. And so conkers may become an obsolete 'game', read it somewhere-Daily Mail I think!

by observation about a quarter of horse chestnuts are resistant to the red death disease i dont know about any insect threat as yet.